Money Makin Manhattan

by Noire

  “You gonna gimme the homegirl hook-up, right?” Honore pressed. “I want the biggest and the best shit y’all took, ya heard? But what I really want is a nice big diamond.”

  “A’ight. I’ll see what I can do. I can tell you don’t know shit about jewelry though. Just because something is the biggest don’t mean it’s the best.”

  “I know enough about jewelry to know what I like,” she said playing it off. “Besides, I’m a smart chick and a quick learner. Look at my target, yo! With a little bit more practice I could probably out-shoot you all day long.” She laughed. “And then I can start my own stick-up click and get it poppin.”

  Ignoring the look that crossed his face, Honore stepped up on deck and picked up her piece. She kept the target at the same distance that Wild Man had just shot from. Her first few shots were slightly off the bulls-eye, but the next ones started to hit vital marks. By the time her clip was empty she’d done almost as well as she did on her first set of rounds.

  Wild Man stood back as she fired, looking real impressed. With some more practice she could definitely be a good shooter. Most people didn’t have the patience for it. He could tell that Honore did.

  “You like what you see, now don’t you?” she grinned when she was done banging at the target. “Go head. Admit it. My gun-game is nice.”

  “Why you tryna be so damn tough?” Wild Man asked with a grin of his own. “Stay in school, little college girl. You don’t go hard enough. I do what the big boys do. Them little niggas in ya hood couldn’t tie my Lebrons.”

  Honore was covered in a light sweat from handling the kick of the rifle but she felt energized as she got ready to chomp down on this fool and eat him alive.

  “School ain’t got a damn thing to do with this. You can save that “little girl” shit too, ’cause with all this booty I’m packing it’s obvious that I’m grown as hell,” she said putting her hands on her sweet hips and taking the conversation where she wanted it to go.

  Honore grinned deviously inside as his hungry eyes shot down to her hips. She was gonna get with this fine Asian nigga again. Yeah, her ass-cheek was still sore and fucked up, but she played a mean head game from her knees.

  “Besides,” she continued and smirked at him sexily, “I’m tough because life is tough. Now how about we hook up someplace private for the rest of the night so I can show you just how tough and grown I am. Since it’s my gangsta that you’re questioning.”

  With the sound of guns popping off all around them Wild Man and Honore stared at each other with crazy lust in their eyes. Both of them were remembering the wild night they had spent together and how good the sex had been. It was silently understood between them exactly what was gonna go down next.

  “Say no more,” Wild Man said as he stared at Slick’s fine-ass side piece and rubbed his hands together in anticipation of getting up to his balls in summa that.

  Say no more…

  $$$$$

  It was late Saturday afternoon and Jewelz and Whitey stood in the middle of a crowd watching Jay-Z’s team beat the shit out of P-Diddy’s team in some hoops at the Rucker Park. The annual basketball tournament was packed to capacity and had the city on fire. The park was hittin with all kinds of celebrities and some of the flyest gangsters and thirsty trap bitches from across the city were in attendance.

  Back in the day, when Jewelz was still working for Bajan Andy, she used to deliver packages out here to some of the biggest dealers in the entire Empire State. They all still respected Jewelz as a thorough bitch, and they had invited her to come out to chill with them on Diddy’s side, even though her roots were in Brooklyn.

  Jewelz was feeling pretty good today and she was having a real good time. Yeah, she was peeping how some niggas were giving Whitey funny looks as he stood posted up next to her, but her posture made it clear that the white boy was with her and everything was one hunnid.

  “I’m surprised you wanted to hang out with me today,” Jewelz leaned toward Whitey and said as they stood in the hot sun watching the intense game go down. “I didn’t even know you were into basketball.”

  Whitey chuckled. “What you tryna say?” he said as he looked down at her. “White boys can’t jump or some shit? Tell Jay to let me lace up for his team and watch me Larry Bird this whole situation out here.”

  Jewelz burst into laughter and shook her head.

  “Shut thee hell up,” she told him playfully. “I know you got muscles and you a lil athletic and all that, but you ain’t got no jumper, boy.”

  “Why don’t you put your heart where your mouth is,” Whitey shot back. He slid behind Jewelz and wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her sweet neck. He felt the softness of her ample ass-cheeks rubbing up against him and he whispered smoothly in her ear.

  “Let’s play some one on one. The stakes can be your future happiness. For real, on some Love and Basketball shit. If I win, you give me your everything. You let me take care of you. You let me protect you and provide for you. You let me be everything that Slick can never be for you.”

  “Okay, here we fucking go,” Jewelz bitched as she shrugged his arms off and moved away from him. “You sure know how to fuck up a moment don’t you? I was gonna play along with ya lil shit until you bought Slick’s name up. This isn’t even the time to be discussing all that, so cool out with all the Slick stuff, okay? I keep telling you that what’s between me and Slick is complicated. Remember, me and you are friends Whitey, okay? Just friends.”

  “You always do that,” Whitey said as he stepped in front of her. He stared down at her with his intense ocean blue eyes. “Excuse me for telling you how I feel about you, Jewelz. But I can see all the stress and strain he’s putting you through.”

  “You need to stop. Slick’s not putting me through anything. I’m a grown woman. I do what I wanna do.”

  “Yeah, but he’s making you chase him and you deserve better than that, Jewelz. All I’m saying is if you want a real man who’s gonna be there standing solid for you every single day and can give you everything you need, then that’s me. I know you, baby. You need love and affection. You need a man who’s willing to show up for you and show you how much he cares. I mean damn, you got me standing right here willing to go all out for you and do all that every day, but somehow that just ain’t enough.”

  OHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

  The spectators in the park erupted in a loud cheer as one of the shooting guards for Team Diddy did a 360 windmill slam and drove everybody insane. The action broke the tension that was brewing between Whitey and Jewelz for the moment and they both stood there quietly for a few moments.

  “Listen to me,” Jewelz finally said, wanting to make shit real clear. “I don’t wanna come across like I’m not diggin the love that you have for me. You’re a good dude, Whitey. It ain’t just that the sex is great, but you make me feel special and you give me a lot of comfort whenever I need it. I really appreciate all the love you offer me, but like I told you before, you can’t force it on me. The issues that me and Slick have are strictly between us, so please don’t talk about things you know nothing about.”

  “And please don’t let him know that I’m fuckin you when you wanna be fuckin him, huh?” Whitey shot back. “What type of woman doesn’t wanna have something real, huh? Whatever you think Slick had for you back in the day, it’s dead. He’s already proven that. So how long are you gonna keep chasing that ghost? Goddammit, Jewelz! I’m the one who’s there for you through thick and thin and everything in between. I’m not asking you to commit to shit, I’m just asking you to open your eyes and not be stupid all your damn life.”

  Shots had been fired and Jewelz was just about to open her mouth and start firing back, but suddenly she felt all the eyes that were on her and Whitey. Niggas out here were hostile. They already weren’t feeling her getting pawed up by no white boy, but to have him screaming on her with base in his voice was way too much. She peeped a couple of hittas looking like that wanted to rush up and steal on Whitey’s ass
, but Jewelz knew that would be the mistake of their lives, and if they flexed on Whitey their people would be reading about their murder in the next day’s Daily News.

  She put her hand on Whitey’s arm and squeezed it gently. She didn’t feel like arguing and deep down inside she knew he was talking some for true, for true, shit anyway.

  “A’ight Whitey damn,” Jewelz conceded. “Can we talk about this shit later? It’s a beautiful day and all I wanna do is watch this game and forget about all the extra emotional shit. Can we do that please?”

  Whitey’s anger subsided as fast as it had come on. He had a real jones going for Jewelz and he just couldn’t let it go. He wanted this girl and he wanted her bad. Her chocolate smooth skin and her thick ass hips, those brown eyes and that smile…she had him head over fuckin heels.

  “You got it,” Whitey said and smiled. “You know I get crazy when it comes to you, Jewelz. I can’t help it.”

  “Okay but remember, we’re just friends, right?” Jewelz clarified as she stared into his eyes. “Just friends.”

  He flashed her that killer grin and shrugged. “Cool. You can call it whatever you wanna call it. Sure, I’m your friend. Any man who wants to be with you should be your friend. Ain’t that right?”

  “Yeah, you right,” Jewelz said as she smiled and reached out to hug him. “Your ass still can’t play no ball. Larry Nerd.”

  Jewelz let him kiss her on the lips and then they settled in to enjoy the rest of the game at the Rucker. Jewelz had smoothed things over with Whitey for now, but the white boy was wide open on her and she knew without a doubt that sooner or later something was gonna have to give.

  CHAPTER 12

  My Brother’s Keeper

  As Handgun Goody and his goon squad pushed through the doors of Brookdale Hospital’s emergency room his usual ice-cold-under-pressure demeanor was nonexistent.

  His lil nephew Trill was in critical condition after being smashed by a big-ass garbage truck. He had sent Trill and two pop-off dummies named Gamma and Turk into the old folks building to see what they could find out about his hittas Rickey Rollack and Cajiid getting pushed, and this was what the fuck had happened.

  A couple of dope boys who had witnessed Trill’s accident said it looked like Trill was running for his life right before he got hit. Goody figured it to be true because the two flunkies he was with, Turk and Gamma, had both been found bodied in the building’s staircase.

  As a kingpin who was trying to expand his stranglehold on the streets of Brooklyn, Goody had of course expected to meet with some opposition. He knew a fair share of niggas would respect his gangsta and go along with the program, and he knew he could make deals and form alliances with other sets to keep shit moving like clockwork.

  Goody also understood that there would be other niggas that he’d have to straight up take to war, and there would be cold dead bodies that he would have to drop in order to get his point across.

  But that was the nature of the business. The nature of the entire drug game. It was a constant fight for positioning amongst the combatants, and the ultimate take was highly lucrative. There were spots in his territory that could produce up to fifteen thousand dollars of straight profit on a good day. And sometimes even more.

  In a hood like Brownsville, with one of the highest concentrations of projects in the Empire State, the more buildings you had under your control the more power you possessed and the more money you could rake in.

  Goody himself would go at anybody’s neck if the ends justified the means in terms of dollar bills. So it was no surprise to him that niggas were willing to die in order to keep those spots and that dope bread for themselves.

  But with two of his best hittas murdered ruthlessly in the streets, and now this latest mayhem in the old folks building where somebody had slumped a couple of his most thoroughbred young’uns and left his nephew in critical condition?

  Goody could only shake his head at that one.

  This here shit seemed to be way outside of the game because as far as Goody knew didn’t nobody have that spot on lock. Wasn’t nobody even competing for it. Nah, something real fuckin funny was going down in that building and he needed to know what it was because the body count from his side just wasn’t adding up. In fact, he was starting to think this shit was personal, which of course could make things difficult and get way bloodier than just an ordinary power move.

  “W’sup, Ma,” Goody walked up and addressed the big-boned West Indian lady at the emergency room’s reception desk. “My lil fam just got hit by a truck and they bought him in here. I need to get back there and see him.”

  “Uh-uh. Nope,” the receptionist twisted her lips and shook her head like Goody had just asked her to suck his dick. “Sorry, I can’t let you back there unless I see some identification and you fill out these forms.”

  Goody looked down at the stack of papers on the clipboard she was trying to hand him.

  “Listen, Miss Lady,” he growled, leaning over the counter until his nose was damn near poking her in her eyeball. “Please don’t waste my time with no frivolous shit like paperwork,” he said in a calm but cold tone as he looked straight into her eyes. “Now, I’ma need you to find out where they got my neph at and point me in that direction.”

  He reached over the counter and put his paw down on the lady’s left shoulder. “And if I have to ask you again these murderous wolves standing behind me will be waiting for you outside when your shift is over,” Goody motioned toward his goons, “and you can discuss all that paperwork shit with them.”

  The receptionist nodded quick-fast. She had no fucking doubt in her mind that this scary bastard meant business. Brookdale wasn’t paying her nearly enough to get fucked up over some paperwork. She had a life to live and grandbabies to make it home to. So without any further hesitation she typed something into her computer and then gave Goody the room number he wanted and got the fuck out the way.

  “This shit don’t feel right,” Goody muttered as him and his brothers walked down the hallway to check on one of their own. They had fuckin flipped when they found out that Trill had almost gotten killed tryna put in work.

  But Goody had never once considered giving up and leaving the old folks building alone. He had lost some good men over there but he still wanted that shit. He would whack the fuck outta whoever was behind their murders and still get the building jumping, just like he had planned.

  “Yo, Trill,” Goody said as he stood over his nephew’s bed. Trill was laid out stiff as hell with tubes coming and going everywhere. He was bruised and bandaged and all bent the fuck up.

  “I know you can’t hear me, son, but I need you to pull through my nigga. I need you to wake up so you can tell me who did this shit to you. I need you to tell me who the fuck I need to kill.”

  Goody had said his piece but on the real he wasn’t sure if his fam was gonna ever wake up. Death was stankin up the air all around Trill’s bed, and if he was blessed enough to pull through with the ability to think and speak clearly again, it would be a miracle.

  Goody was no stranger to death and he had no fear of it. He was still searching for leads to the bitch-made dirt bag who had dared to spill his soldier’s blood, and standing there looking at Trill’s broken body the coldness of unsatisfied revenge consumed his heart.

  He was gonna smash the muthafucka who had done this to his little neph. To his mother’s firstborn grandson. He was gonna knock out his teeth and crack his fuckin collarbone. Yeah, he was gonna torture that nigga. Stick a match to him and burn him up like a dried-out twig.

  All he need to do was find out who the shithead was. He just needed to catch one whiff of the bastard who was smoking his crew, and he was gonna plant that muthafucka a country-mile below the ground.

  “Rest up my nigga,” Goody said to his unconscious soldier. “Rest up good, too. ’Cause when you wake up I want you to tell me who the fuck did this to you. And don’t worry. I got something real special planned for them niggas,” Goody
promised.

  The machine that was breathing for Trill moved his chest up and down, but otherwise the young man lay deathly still. He was the only one who could supply his uncle with the names, faces, times, and places, but unfortunately for Handgun Goody, it would be a minute before he’d be able to tell him.

  CHAPTER 13

  A Monster Unleashed

  When there was a sharp economic downturn the poor and the weak always suffered, which is why Monday morning found Whitey Reynolds doing just fuckin fine.

  Although the Zip ’em up Crew’s last hit had gone sour and the solidarity of his crew had damn near dissolved, the white boy of the group wasn’t worried in the least.

  Whitey was definitely what you would call an opportunist, but above all else he was a predator. There wasn’t a weak bone in his body and being poor was for the dumb suckers of the world. It was for those ignorant idiots who lacked the guts and brutality to take whatever they wanted out of life.

  Today Whitey’s guts were telling him that he was very close to getting what he wanted. A while back he had gone to Fulton Street and squeezed a name out of the old Jewish kike who owned the store, and after taking his time to do some research, he had formulated a plan.

  This morning he was laying in the cut outside of a ritzy twelve-story apartment building in one of Money-Making Manhattan’s most expensive neighborhoods. Whitey wasn’t looking to close out a high-priced real estate transaction as one might assume, but he was looking to trade his stolen diamond for a suitcase full of cash.

  A born and bred blue-blooded native New Yorker, Whitey was as American as baseball and apple pie. He knew very little about the ways of the French and he had never in life been to Paris or Belgium, but right now he had his eye on a sho’nuff tasty-looking French pastry.

  Her hair was flaming red and she was dressed in a short black dress and the white bib apron of a professional maid. Whitey pretended to tie his shoe as she walked past him and hurried toward the building, and when she unlocked the gated door and stepped into the foyer he pushed in right behind her.